Marked for Jonas Schuster
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad15 Sep 2042
A knee injury of the worst kind for Dominik Sztojka
87 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Werder Bremen lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad15 Sep 2042
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings15 Sep 2042
Salim Musah has a hand in both — 7.78
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.78, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Match13 Sep 2042
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Werder Bremen and Borussia Dortmund in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad15 Sep 2042
Words at Werder Bremen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eric da Silva Moreira is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad15 Sep 2042
Karl Hein wants out of the spotlight
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
Market15 Sep 2042
Contract settled, hands shaken, no fee changing hands. Heinrich Wagner leaves Werder Bremen the quiet way, and the wage bill breathes a little easier.
Market15 Sep 2042
Contract settled, hands shaken, no fee changing hands. Jonas Krüger leaves Werder Bremen the quiet way, and the wage bill breathes a little easier.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad8 Sep 2042
A knee injury of the worst kind for Dominik Sztojka
94 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Werder Bremen lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match6 Sep 2042
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 90th minute. Eintracht Frankfurt will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Squad8 Sep 2042
257 appearances across 17 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Squad8 Sep 2042
Reigan Heskey gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Reigan Heskey has just signed for Werder Bremen, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad8 Sep 2042
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The terraces8 Sep 2042
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match6 Sep 2042
A 1‑0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings8 Sep 2042
Defensive actions: 17, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings8 Sep 2042
16 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Jul 2042
A knee injury of the worst kind for Friedrich Wolff
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Werder Bremen lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market14 Jul 2042
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Werder Bremen, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad14 Jul 2042
Karl Hein was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Market14 Jul 2042
Mainz 05 come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Werder Bremen did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad14 Jul 2042
Georg Schulz is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad14 Jul 2042
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom2 Jun 2042
The statement thanked him for his efforts and wished him well, in that order and in about that many words. The search begins immediately.
Boardroom2 Jun 2042
A stranger takes charge at Werder Bremen
The coaching staff has emptied out entirely and there was nobody internal to promote, so the club has appointed a name almost none of its supporters will recognise. Clubs recover from this; none of them enjoy explaining it.
Boardroom2 Jun 2042
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Boardroom2 Jun 2042
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
Market2 Jun 2042
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Werder Bremen can pretend not to have heard.
Squad2 Jun 2042
162 appearances across 10 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and Werder Bremen know what they have.
Squad2 Jun 2042
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Patrice Čović and Werder Bremen agree another 2 years.
Squad2 Jun 2042
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad2 Jun 2042
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Werder Bremen are dealing with a man who wants a different country.